Elvis Presley - The Albums and Singles Thread pt2 The Sixties

I like the reverb thing but the song structure and pauses are too close to "All Shook Up" which is a better song.

 

I think Elvis liked the more contemporary (at the time) gospel music. That's one big reason that Elvis hit it off with Charlie Hodge since Hodge was a member of the gospel group The Foggy River Boys. Elvis was a fan of their music before he was well known nationally.

 

His Hand In Mine
Written By :
Mosie Lister

Recorded :
RCA's Studio B, Nashville, October 30-31, 1960: October 30, 1960. splice take 5 and end of take 4

This is quite a beautiful song and Elvis' newly discovered lower range suits this song very well. This is a gentle moderate to slow ballad centered around the piano and embellished with backing vocals.

 

I'm Gonna Walk Dem Golden Stairs
Written By :
Cully Holt

Recorded :
RCA's Studio B, Nashville, October 30-31, 1960: October 31, 1960. take 1

This song bounces along like one of Elvis' early Sun sides. This is the type of song I would expect to hear in and early black church. The enthusiasm, the full sounding choir and the structure all sound that way to me. This is a piano and drum base with a driving beat and would probably be a closer if I was using it in church.

 

These are the types of songs I could listen to Elvis sing all day long.

On a slightly different note, it seems so many early Elvis albums - including this one - generally follow a pattern of slow/ballad song followed by fast/more rock track. There's a few exceptions but it seems too consistent to have not been planned.

 

Will Friedwald, in his excellent American Heritage essay on Elvis, makes the following points regarding Presley and gospel:

"The expected trajectory of a successful blues-and-pop singer in the mid-twentieth century was out of the church and into the jukebox: from Dinah Washington and Sarah Vaughan in the forties, and Sam Cooke and Lou Rawls in the fifties, to Aretha Franklin and Gladys Knight in the sixties. But it would be hard to think of another singer, black or white, who became a star in mainstream pop before beginning to concentrate on spiritual music. In that aspect of his career, Presley is like Duke Ellington and Leonard Bernstein, who began exploring their spiritual sides later, rather than earlier, in their careers. Presley's gospel recordings represent perhaps the most consistently excellent work of his entire career...this was the music that was the most real and tangible to him. He heard the blues, country, and urban pop over the radio, but gospel he could reach out and touch. Presley brings to singing the praises of the Lord both a conviction and an intensity unmatched almost anywhere in his work."

 

Amen.

 

I hope you're saying that in your best JD Sumner dive-bomb voice

 

Actually it was on the 1997 expanded GI Blues. Track 9 is the unspliced complete take 2. Also included, track 17 the full take one. The intro of take one was spliced unto take two for subsequent releases of GI Blues LPs and is by far the most common on CD. Another CD that includes the entire take two unspliced is the GI Blues used in one of the 5 CD sets "Original Album Classics". The take two intro has a more predominate tuba. The intro of take one that was spliced to take two that is by far more common has a more subdued tuba.

And, of course, it is featured on FTD GI Blues V2.

 

Yes, they remixed the 3 track on the 1997 CD. So technically the original mix of the full take 2 is not on CD as far as I know.

 

Elvis I Back is the best of the Porter LPs as far as material. But His Hand In Mine and Something For Everybody are the best sounding of them all. (Not that Elvis Is Back doesn't sound great). But as for me, they ALL have too much reverb. A little less would have made them even better.

 

I like the whole album (and I am an atheist!). But the standouts for me are Joshua Fit The Battle, Swing Down Sweet Chariot and Milky White Way.

 

You guys nailed it on the head for me. I cannot get enough of that harmony vocal from Ray and Gordon (I think its him also) on this number and the whole background vocals.

I think Elvis's range and power are stunning on Are You Lonesome Tonight? as well. Wow, Bill Porter created some magic there with just the right amount of reverb, and I think the recitation is the most haunting one ever committed to tape. The man just had a beautiful voice, whether singing or talking with it. That is not always the case with some great singers.

 

I would have to rank His Hand In Mine as one of my favorites of Elvis. His passion for the music just shows in all of the songs on the album. Listening to the mono version of the title track, when he starts the part "I will never walk alone...", makes it sound like he is standing right in the room. Beautiful album all around.

 

Bill admitted that he did not have time to turn down the reverb on Are You Lonesome Tonight. Even he thought it was too much for that song.

Interview with Elvis Presley's Sound Engineer, Bill Porter by Michael Fremer | Elvis Interviews

 

I do really love the sound on all three of those albums, but I do think the sound on His Hand In Mine and especially, Something For Everybody, are both underrated. I came a little late to the beauty of His Hand In Mine, which might be the single finest one night recording session in the history of popular music, especially when you add the two singles of Crying In The Chapel and Surrender to the mix of great recordings that took place on that historic night.

 

In My Father's House
Written By :
Aileene Hanks

Recorded :
RCA's Studio B, Nashville, October 30-31, 1960: October 31, 1960. take 8

This track is so obviously heartfelt in delivery that it is quite captivating. This track is also lead by the piano and backing vocals. This simple delivery is very effective, and one wonders if Elvis has used these stripped back arrangements to keep the focus on the lyrics. Some studio releases could certainly have benefited from some minor stripping back in the arrangements also.

 

Milky White Way
Written By :
Traditional, arranged and adapted by Elvis Presley

Recorded :
RCA's Studio B, Nashville, October 30-31, 1960: October 30, 1960. take 7

This track makes me think of Mahalia Jackson. The vocal delivery sounds like Elvis was channeling her to a certain extent. There is a certain timbre in his voice that makes me think of her straight away, and that is no light praise.
This track has a more full band arrangement and even the guitar is audible. This song has a bit of a strut to it, which in my mind gives it a little more to grab on to. I love some mellow church ballads, but I am more of a fan of songs with a bit of beat and strut to them. It never ceased to amaze me that so many folks in Church wanted to be somber, whe we were supposed to be expressing the Joy of Salvation in Jesus.

 

In My Father’s House takes me back to a quiet, spring Sunday morning. And Milky White Way is a highlight of the album for me. Before hearing the album, I assumed all of the tracks were all somewhat somber, this one rocks and moves, and with different, non-religious lyrics could have easily fit on Elvis Is Back.

 

Amen.

 

Well, these are two of my favorite songs on one of the top five gospel albums ever recorded, along with Charlie Rich's Grammy nominated Silver Linings from 1976 with the great Nashville producer Billy Sherrill handling the arrangements with Rich himself. In My Father's House features one of Elvis's greatest and purest vocals ever. When he drops to his lower range on the line "To bear my burden" on In My Fathers and does so with great vocal power and feeling, it almost rattles my B&W speakers. Again, this angelic tenor voice just so effortless drops to baritone and almost bass range at the drop of a hat. Wow, William F. Buckley was correct when he said that Elvis possessed "The most beautiful singing voice on the planet."